Category Archives: Michael F

In an article published Tuesday morning, Forbes’s Dan Alexander — who has become Ross’s central tormentor in the last few months — reported that, based on conversations he had with 21 people, Ross may have stolen more than $120 million from associates over the years, taking vast amounts of money from business partners and consistently scamming investors. “If even half of the accusations are legitimate,” the magazine writes, “the current United States secretary of commerce could rank among the biggest grifters in American history.

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One of Ross’s former colleagues calls him a “pathological liar.”

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Unsurprisingly, Ross’s questionable ethical practices have continued during his White House tenure. As … Alexander … reported last June, Ross maintained holdings in foreign companies even while serving in government, exposing him to obvious conflicts of interest. One of these firms had major ties to a Russian oligarch who had been hit with American sanctions. Last November, Ross signed a form asserting that he had divested all the assets he had previously promised to, which turned out not to be true.

So there’s the Mueller investigation and the Manafort trial, both of which would in ordinary times and with a normal administration be crippling if not fatal. But the Trump crazy train/cult careens on, in no small part because the true believers might as well be in a cult. They seem to think Donald Trump…Donald fucking Trump…is some sort of divine intervention, which tells me more about their state of mind and what they consider ordained or divine. To which I can only reply…good lord.

So, fuck those folks. You’re not going to reason with them, they’re way beyond that, assuming they ever managed to get to reason to begin with. But…they’re not a majority, or I hope like hell not…and if they are, well, better that we know.

Anyway, just my .00002 cents worth, but forget those folks, and instead, focus on getting our base out…and if there are any undecideds (but how can anyone possibly be undecided in this age?), anyway, for anyone not sure, point out all the times Orange Narcissus has hardly been the alpha male he claims to be, but instead has groveled or otherwise displayed to the world how laughably obsequious he is towards not just Vlad Putin, but even dirtbags like Kim Jong Un.

And tie him to the whole damned Republican Party. Why not? They’ve tied themselves to him. Democratic opposition researchers should be ready to plaster every available media format with material that, over and over again, displays Trump as a toady weakling. That’s what he fears, that’s what he scared of. Being revealed as an ineffective — or worse, incompetent — idiot.

Even as Trump demonstrates how crazy and unsuited for office he is, the GOP doubles down on him because of his popularity with the base (what’s the line? something like Democrats despise their base, Republicans fear theirs?).

Almost every elected Republican we talk to privately thinks President Trump’s warm embrace of Vladimir Putin was unexplainable, unacceptable and un-American. Yes, they wish they could say this publicly. No, they won’t — not now, and probably never.

The cold, hard reason: They see no upside in speaking out — and fear political suicide if they do, numerous Republican officials tell us.

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Headed into a election that’s expected to favor Democrats, a top GOP Senate strategist says Republicans are counting on President Donald Trump’s media dominance to turn out their voters in November — and drown out opponents’ messaging…

“Everybody thinks that President Trump is some kind of drag on the Republican Party, [when] in this case, he’s just the essential ingredient,” said [Josh] Holmes, who’s helped engineer his party’s Senate strategy for the past 16 years as a chief aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

In other words, forget any appeal to better angels, compromise, reasonableness, whatever. DT’s done everything short of acting as Vladimir Putin’s personal footstool, but it’s not enough to shake the base, who cling to him…as strongly as they do to their guns and religion. Hell, Trump is pretty much their religion, and they fetishize him as much as they do their precious weapons.

Sorry to play the same song over and over, but I think it’s worth repeating. There are times to debate issues. This isn’t one. There’s no arguing. Team Trump and the GOP base (or maybe I should say Team Trump IS the GOP base); anyway, it’s a political movement based on cruelty and hatred, pure and simple.

It’s not like this is new. They’ve been around for a while…I’m sure you could go back further, but certainly since Goldwater…Nixon carried them, as did Reagan and Bush Junior…though…I’d thought of these folks as George W. Bush voters. I didn’t realize they likely view Bush as “ok, but a little nuanced and sophisticated.” Trump, for all his ugliness, speaks their language.

Which leaves us at a crossroads. I still think a majority of people in this country reject Trumpism. They did in 2016. Let’s not forget he won on a technicality/thanks to weird rules. So, in the upcoming mid-terms, we need to express this rejection in the strongest possible way. Vote them out.

Or deal with the consequences of living in a country that embraces casual cruelty as public policy. Guess we’ll see what happens.

I don’t mean to keep beating this tin drum as loudly as I have been, but I think it’s important to keep reminding people that the current president* is an aberrational modern Republican only in the crudeness of a) his rhetoric and, b) the way he wields his power. (Also, he’s something of a nut, which, in my experience, transcends politics anyway.) For example, as was pointed earlier on Wednesday, Tuesday night’s Republican primary results in various states pretty much preclude any serious attempt by Republican office holders to throw a spanner into the crazy that is dominating our politics at the moment. This morning, on MSNBC, this is what Joe Scarborough had to say on the subject.

“It has devolved into a cult. Primary voters in the Republican Party have devolved into a Trumpist cult.”

That’s a word that’s getting tossed around a lot these days. Retiring Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, opined that his party is in the thrall of “cult-like behavior,” while longtime Republican activist and cable TV megastar Rick Wilson says that the word cult “isn’t strong enough” to describe what’s going on. This makes Corker the moderate, I guess.

Now, to be clear, I don’t disagree with any of this. We are seeing politics on one side of the aisle turning into a cult, but, alas, that cult is modern Republicanism. Trumpism is merely one breakaway sect of it, and, truth be told, it hasn’t broken away all that far. After all, Corey Stewart got nominated for the U.S. Senate from Virginia not because of his loyalty to the president*, but as an adherent to a far older cult with which the GOP was quite content to be a part of over the previous four decades: the cult of the Confederate States of America.

Another example: as the results were rolling in Tuesday night, Congressman Steve King, the Republican crackpot who represents the Fourth Congressional District of Iowa, took it upon himself to retweet a famous British neo-Nazi named Mark Collett.

I will give Trump, well, small credit (small credit like his small fingers?). In the, thank heavens, absence of any major crisis (knock on wood) he’s managed to make the run up to the mid-terms mainly about himself. And at this point, even the most scathing of Mueller reports wouldn’t change the true believers’ minds. If anything, they’d view it at Trump’s passion/martyrdom … making him the first martyr ever who’s tastes run to dictator chic.

But, and sorry to keep repeating, his base might be loyal, might be rabid, and certainly might be dangerous, but they’re not a majority and, despite the lazy narrative of the media, they’re not any more “the real Americans” than the rest of us…which means they can be outvoted come November…and goddamn, let’s hope that happens. A couple of days ago, primary voters put candidates on the ballot ranging from good-enough to exceptional…and this fall we’ve got the chance to do something even Trump might understand: essentially cancel his show and go with a fall-season replacement.

OK, maybe we can’t actually cancel, short of a smoking gun/pee tape (and even then, no way the Senate convicts…sigh). But winning the House could keep them on the defensive long enough to reach 2020 without any additional damage…well, assuming no major crisis…yeah, not a comfortable assumption, but on that all we can do is hope…

Turns out I was wrong all this time. Contrary to what I’d thought (and yeah, haven’t read it yet, though it’s on my ever-expanding list) Sinclair Lewis didn’t coin the phrase “when fascism comes to the US it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” But it’s hard to watch the latest bit of performance art in Nashville and not think, damn…this is deeply disturbing.

Gratuitous cruelty is official policy. Puerto Rico was abandoned last year, even as Trump flat out lied in bragging about his response to the two storms that devastated the island. Ever more contorted excuses are, what– tested/focus grouped?– by Ghouliani and others as they no longer bother to deny felonies like collusion with a foreign government or obstruction of justice but instead rehash the old Nixon defense of “if the president does it, it’s not illegal” (notwithstanding that collusion occurred before he “won” the election).

And that Trump spent a decade or more as a full service laundromat for mobbed-up Russian cash…not to mention having a personal life that evangelicals would condemn if they weren’t so eager to give him a mulligan…is little more than gossip column fodder. Michelle Wolf got that one spot-on. They just can’t quit him.

But we’ve got to. Trump might be a joke, but the direction he’s taking the country isn’t. It’s a race to the bottom that doesn’t end well at all.

It’s become a dreary slog to keep up with the sleaze and rot. Revelations that Michael Cohen got paid $400K by the Ukrainian government in exchange for allegedly arranging a meeting between their president and ours — and the subsequent decision by Ukraine to cut short an investigation into Paul Manafort — get the “in other news” treatment for the most part (imagine the level of fury from the noise machine if this had happened with a Clinton or Obama associate. Actually, you don’t need to imagine, because the Clinton Foundation was attacked by the usual suspects for this very reason.)

I think the most frustrating aspect is that it shouldn’t be, and really isn’t, any surprise at all that Team Trump is functioning more or less exactly as expected. Trump’s always been sleazy and more than a little crooked. About all that’s surprising is, despite being corrupt to the core, he’s still kind of a pipsqueak in that world. A competent crook would have really raked it in … but I digress. Trump’s crookedness wasn’t even an open secret. It was in plain view for any news organization to report on…but throughout 2015 and 2016 the only thing deemed newsworthy by the elite press was…Hillary Clinton’s email.

Adrastos cites Driftglass for “Stupid Watergate,” and it certainly is a case of history if not repeating then rhyming (as well as being both tragedy and farce). The obviousness of it all, the insistence of both the media and law enforcement to tread carefully (because, IOKIYAR — you can be certain if a Democrat showed one one thousandth of this degree of corruption…), the sad laments of people like Brian “where-are-the-Republican-heroes?” Williams, the high-handed pious pronouncements from Ghouliani and Pence that one year is enough and for the good of the country let’s put it all behind us…about all that’s missing right now is a smoking gun (in the form of a pee tape? Ugh) that can’t be dismissed as insufficient…though given the shamelessness of this administration — and an elite media that’s more interested in gossip and entertainment than journalism (now that I think of it, a pee tape — ugh — would likely be little more than fodder for the likes of Hannity and Geraldo)…

But it’s not just the corruption, which itself is beyond even Nixonian epic. Quite a bit of institutional rot is being exposed, and yeah, these are dangerous times.

“If we sanction [Iran] again, we ought to sanction anybody else who does business with them,” North, who was recently elected as the new leader of the National Rifle Association, told Fox News. “That’ll stop the Euros from helping to bail them out while they cheat on this program.”

Or can he?Hubris, meet Hannity. Sure, Trump’s core supporters won’t — and don’t — care (I’ll give Trump the slightest of credits: he was right when he said he could shoot someone and not lose his base. Yep.)

But forget about the base. They’re the same people who stayed with Bush Junior to the bitter end, the same people who supported Cheney, or, previously, Oliver North, Nixon post-Watergate, Agnew…Goldwater…the oldest ones still might think Ike was a squish.

Ghouliani didn’t lose those voters. But here’s hoping this latest own goal erodes more of the soft support. The same voters who helped turn Pennsylvania’s 18th and the Senate Seat in Alabama. Because, not to get over-dramatic, it’s not optional…we have to outvote them this cycle. If not…geez, I just don’t want to think about the consequences.

Oh, and on a less dramatic note, it’s always fun to watch Rudy faceplant. He’s a ghoul and a creep. If only he could do even more damage and then resign in disgrace…

Additionally…I heard this last night on the Chris Hayes show, and I think saw/read this elsewhere…regarding the Mueller investigation…no one is arguing, for lack of a better term, actual innocence. Trump himself sticks to no collusion, while everyone else speculates on whether or not various people will turn.

Brave Paul Ryan ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When elections reared their ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes brave Paul Ryan turned about
And gallently he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
To lobby, lie, and steal and cheat,
Bravest of the brave, Paul Ryan

Packing it in and packing it up
Sneaking away and buggering off
Chickening out and pissing off home
Bravely he is giving up the gavel.

And Trump himself is both an embarrassment and a danger. We’ve been extremely fortunate — or lucky — that there’s been no catastrophe so far, but if/when there is…and besides, as a friend has told me several times, every day Trump remains in office is, if nothing else, an affront to basic decency. The bar is set so low the revelation that Trump is a “subject” and not (yet) a “target” of Robert Mueller (at least in part because some thing a sitting president by law can’t be indicted); anyway, that revelation is greeted by Trump as some sort of vindication.

So…fuck ’em. Don’t try to reason or see their point or otherwise compromise. Outvote them in November, and outvote them again in 2020…time to wake up.

Romney played his relationship with Trump off as a strength, not a weakness, when talking about his qualifications for U.S. Senate. His relationships with 40 U.S. Senators and the president are what will help him be effective as a Senator, Romney said.

“(Trump) has endorsed me in this race,” Romney said. “He respects people who speak their mind, because now and then, as you know, if he says something I think is wrong, I’ll point it out. And if he disagrees with me, he points it out even harder.”

So much for his principled stand in 2016…and something to keep in mind if/when he’s anointed as some sort of “Republican Hero,” to use a phrase I heard Brian Williams say more than once in 2017.